Sumbi
THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)-Cebu Regional Office has launched an intensive campaign to inform the public of the extended deadline for exchanging New Design Series (NDS) banknotes, which lost their value in July this year.
Lawyer Leonides Sumbi, BSP-Cebu regional director, said they are tapping all media platforms to get the message across.
“Earlier this week, I was interviewed during a morning show at a local television station. We are also urging people to share news about the extended deadline on their social media accounts,” she told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.
The BSP has partnered with the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) to accelerate the spread of information, with Sumbi set to appear in the latter agency’s Kapihan sa PIA next week.
The BSP’s Monetary Board, which is the central bank’s highest policy making body, has moved to December 29 this year the deadline to exchange these notes due to numerous requests from the general public.
But Sumbi said the banking public should not wait for the deadline before having their old banknotes exchanged, as there is no telling what could happen on that day.
“What if there will be a transport strike? Or a typhoon? As soon as you have the time, come to our office,” she said.
The banking public can go directly to the BSP regional office along Osmeña Boulevard since private and even public banks will no longer accommodate the exchange of old banknotes.
The window for exchange will be open between 9 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. from Monday to Friday, Sumbi said.
Cash exchange will be at a maximum of P100,000 and the owner of the NDS notes will be issued a check or his/her account will be credited directly with the amount in exchange.
If the NDS notes are mutilated, owners need to paste it in a paper provided by the BSP.
Since July 1 this year, only the New Generation Currency (NGC) banknotes launched in 2010 can be used for daily transactions.
Last June, then BSP governor Amando Tetangco Jr. said they had no plan to extend the June 30 deadline to exchange or replace NDS with NGC bills.Sumbi said that days before the earlier deadline, they received more than 100 requests from the public to extend the cutoff.
The BSP official said most of these note-holders who came to her office are tourists, overseas Filipino workers and locals who claimed they bought peso bills from money changers abroad or that they did not know about the deadline, even after it had been publicized and extended several times already.
Anticipating the extension, the regional office came up with a logbook to record the names of all those who came to them.
After the extension was announced late last month, the office immediately contacted all those in its logbook.
The BSP originally set the demonetization of the NDS bills on January 1 this year. Last December, the BSP moved the deadline to March 31, but officials said in March that there was public clamor to extend the deadline anew.
Since demonetized, the NDS banknotes launched in 1985 no longer have monetary value.
Filipinos living or working abroad who had registered up to P50,000 in old bills could still exchange their NDS banknotes at any BSP office until December 31 this year.
Sumbi said she hoped this will not be the final deadline extension since there will always be people who will put off the exchange for later.